Two teenage siblings killed in Israel’s latest wave of airstrikes on Gaza were “always smiling” and “sharing happiness”, their teacher has said.
Layan and Omar al Jmasy, aged 16 and 15, were killed along with their parents and siblings as Israel launched one of its deadliest days of attacks in Gaza since the war started 17 months ago.
The children were hit in Gaza City, according to Ahmad Abu Rizik. He knew Layan and Omar as they went to one of the tent schools he founded as part of his Gaza Great Minds project.
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Layan had been “so excited” to start grade 11 on Tuesday, but an Israeli airstrike ended her life the same day.
She “passed away and she was always the first to surprise her teachers, whether it was for their birthdays or any other special occasion”.
“She always wanted to play and had a beautiful spirit, just like her brother Omar,” her maths teacher said, according to Mr Rizik.
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Describing Omar, 29-year-old Mr Rizik said he was “very smart”, excelled in his studies and loved playing football.
He told Sky News he was a “very cheerful person, always there to be laughter wherever he is”.
“They were always smiling and share happiness everywhere they go,” Mr Rizik, who himself has three children aged four, two and two months, said in a post on X about the siblings.
Mr Rizik founded Gaza Great Minds to give students a chance to learn during Israel’s military campaign, which was triggered by Hamas‘s attacks on 7 October 2023.
Father ‘really scared’ to lose his children
He said he is “terrified” of losing his family or any more of his pupils now the ceasefire has ended.
“I am really scared to lose my kids […] or even my students because they are in different locations in Gaza City and most of them are in camps and camps are the most-affected or targeted places right now as from what we saw in the last night.”
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Israel resumed airstrikes on Gaza in the early hours of Tuesday, bringing to an end a fragile ceasefire agreement with Hamas which had brought relative peace to the enclave for two months.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said the number of dead so far from Tuesday’s strikes was 413, with more than 500 others injured.
Most of those killed were reported to be women and children.
Mr Rizik said he has already been displaced seven times.
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“I lived in a school, in one of its classes, I lived in a tent, lived in the streets, literally, I lived in one of the camps in Gaza inside a very tiny tent, I lived in a partly destroyed house,” Mr Rizik said.
‘Family drink water mixed with sewage’
He said his family is forced to drink water mixed with sewage and his children haven’t had any protein for more than a year, while milk formula and nappies have been especially hard to find.
His children have suffered from dehydration and stomach pain.
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They got poisoned “many many times because [of] food that wasn’t clean”, Mr Rizik said.
The father-of-three said he was scared for his family as the violence resumed and was scrambling to find canned milk and clean water for his children.
He has also been seeking canned food to “keep them for the darkest days we are facing”.
“It’s not easy at all because we don’t know what the future holds for us, it’s like living in a nightmare and you don’t know where or when you will wake up.”
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Mr Rizik said the sight of starving children chasing parachutes that dropped aid on Gaza was what inspired him to build a safe space for them to learn during the war.
The war, sparked by the 7 October 2023 Hamas massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel when around 250 others were taken hostage, has since seen more than 48,000 Palestinians killed in the besieged territory, according to Gazan health officials.
The Gaza health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count but said more than half of the fatalities were women and children.
Speaking of the trauma the war has left on pupils, Mr Rizik said: “When we told them to draw something, all of our students drew either destroyed houses or people being tortured by the soldiers.”
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While in “normal” schools most children would laugh if a clown was brought in, Mr Rizik said that wasn’t the case at his tent schools.
“They lost the ability to smile again, so this is how they are traumatised,” he said.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has been approached for comment.
